6 gut checks before the stock market’s opening bell

By Shawn Langlois

Good morning.

“Imagine watching a football game where you didn’t know the score, and the refs are constantly reversing calls from two quarters ago. That’s about where we’re at,” writes the Crossing Wall Street blog’s Eddy Elfenbein, as he fires off his reasons for the “hate, hate, hate” he harbors toward the closely-watched monthly jobs report due out this morning.

So, instead of trying to divine the health of the economy from the jobs report or the University of Michigan consumer sentiment reading, perhaps take a closer look at Smith & Wesson’s results. Gun sales are surging, and one blogger says that’s all you really need to know about U.S. confidence levels (more on that later).

The economy: The U.S. jobs report came out at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, and while economists were looking for that number to fall to 80,000, it surprised to the upside at 146,000. With the wrath of Hurricane Sandy playing tricks on the jobs growth, predictions were all over the map. See: How to read the Sandy-impacted jobs report.

Cam Hui, a portfolio manager at Qwest Investment Fund Management, tells investors to stay clear. He says he hates the report because “the market can react in a violent fashion to what is essentially noise.” The aforementioned Elfenbein echoed that sentiment, but put it more bluntly: “The monthly jobs report needs to go die in a fire.”

In addition to the payrolls, the preliminary snapshot of the University of Michigan consumer sentiment data is due later in the day. Retailers will look closely at how this reading bodes for the holiday season.

The buzz: Smith & Wesson
/quotes/zigman/87396/quotes/nls/swhcSWHC shares are setting up for a jump at the open, after the gun seller posted a surge in sales after yesterday’s close. In the wake of the Colorado shootings and in the run-up to the election, gun lovers, a group that doesn’t include the likes of Piers Morgan and Bob Costas, have been loading up.

Mike Krieger of the Liberty Blitzkrieg blog calls gun sales “the only true ‘consumer confidence’ statistic one should look at.” Why? “People do not hoard guns when they are confident about the future of the country.”

The call of the day: Netflix to approach $1,400 a share by 2017? Read why a guy who just days ago called the stock a short-term short opportunity on Seeking Alpha now sees the potential for a huge rally in the next five years.

Read one woman’s account, published for the first time, 71 years after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

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Need to Know (NTK) guides investors to the most important, insightful items required to chart a course ahead of each trading day. Anchored by lead writer Shawn Langlois, NTK will sift through the fire hose of news, commentary and data, from traditional and non-traditional sources, and extract what’s most essential. You can start reading NTK here as it begins publishing at approximately 6:30 a.m. ET, or sign up here to get a version in your email box every morning at approximately 8:45. a.m. ET.